Charges held for court against teen who stole student’s identity, made racist MySpace comments
All charges against a 19-year-old Uniontown man accused of stealing the identity of a Uniontown Area High School student to make racial threats against black students were held for Fayette County Court following a preliminary hearing Tuesday. Kevin Andrew Burd of 338 Elizabeth St. was charged before Magisterial District Judge Mark L. Blair with terroristic threats, identity theft, recklessly endangering another person, harassment and disorderly conduct May 1, following a two-week investigation by state police.
State police trooper Thomas B. Broadwater alleged that Burd used the popular MySpace Internet Web site – a free site used for Internet chat and information sharing – to create a racially charged Web page purported to be authored by then-sophomore Justin Guthrie, 16, of Vanderbilt.
On Tuesday, several witnesses, including Guthrie, took the witness stand to testify in the case after Burd pleaded not guilty to the charges.
According to Guthrie, two friends outside the school district made him aware of the Web site on April 16. He testified he did not give permission to anyone to create the site or to use his photos.
“I was mad, really mad,” Guthrie testified, but noted that he was not worried that people would believe the threats were made by him. “My friends know that I would never do something like that.”
According to trooper Thomas B. Broadwater, police were contacted by high school Principal Thomas Colebank on April 19 and alerted them to the situation.
Broadwater testified that Burd created a MySpace page on April 7 pretending to be Guthrie.
He posted photographs taken from Guthrie’s legitimate MySpace page on the bogus page and then laced the Internet page with racial slurs and threats against black students, police allege.
One specific post said, “I hate all the (racial slur.) I swear I’m gonna bring a gun to school someday and kill them all,” Broadwater stated in the affidavit of probable cause.
Broadwater testified that police contacted MySpace and eventually tracked down Burd by following the trail created by the Internet service provider’s address used to create the MySpace account.
According to police, Burd accessed the page 22 times from his home over a 13-day period, ending April 16.
When questioned on April 26, Burd initially denied knowing about the page but then told police that his ex-girlfriend, a 10th-grade student at the high school, used his computer to make the bogus page, police said.
However, Marissa Hoff of Uniontown testified that she did not create the page and that she only became aware of the Web site after one of Burd’s ex-girlfriends told her about it.
She also denied knowledge of several emails allegedly between Burd and Hoff regarding the page during cross-examination by defense attorney Simon John.
John argued that there was not sufficient evidence that Burd created the site and that all charges against him should be dismissed.
After the hearing, Blair set bond for Burd at $5,000 unsecured.